Limitless Worlds

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Kevin Crawford, the mad genius behind Stars Without Number, Other Dust and other awesome stuff just released a Kickstarter for Silent Legions, a Lovecraftian sandbox game. How awesome! I backed instantly, and I am in the process of rolling up a region thanks to the beta. I thought I would chronicle that process here.

The Fell Gods

The first step is to make up your Lovecraftian pantheon. I rolled up one that includes two pantheons, one of three gods and the other of two. The three god pantheon has the aspect of Monotheistic, meaning the three gods are really an aspect of one god. The second pantheon is Dualistic, meaning that the two gods war with each other.

The Monotheistic god has the aspects of Controller of Time, Controller of Plants and Controller of Thirst. The Dualistic gods are a Controller of Decay and a Creator of Corpses, After some brainstorming, here is what I came up with

Monotheistic Pantheon

Though seeming as three seperate deities by cultists, Rnaao, Huak and E'dhurthalelo are all aspects of Yata, the Albaster Silken Eye.

His aspect of Rnaao, the Ashen Lord of Dusk, is focused on the dim hours of night where it seems the night comes alive. Rnaao feeds on the fears of those at these hours, stretching these hours cosmically. Those aware of the Deep Black now that midnight doesn't stretch for an hour, but days at a time.

The Huak aspect, also called the Living Lust of Thorns, represents an almost sexual devotion to plants, a complete surrendering of body and soul. Plants are stalwart in time, simple yet always active, and Huak admires this, spawning terrible mutated, half-sentient plants who feed on, and even mate with, worshipers

Finally, E'dhurthalelo, the Writhing Tyrant of Sorrow, is the less dominant aspect, and represents the eventual drying out of the cosmos, as stretched time and demented foliage absorb the lifeforce of the universe. E'dhurthalelo is inevitability itself.

Dualistic Pantheon
Kelzabhar, the Pontifex of the Hungry Mouth, seems to endlessly hunger for the sick and the rotting. Infecting his followers with terrible gangrene and rot, he feeds off their pain and life force as they writh. However, their suffering is his lifeblood, so he makes sure they live in agony.

Itha-glaq hates Kelzabhar for this reason. Called the Emerald Deviser of Smoke, his shrewd method of conjuring the undead into massive armies herded by servitors requires the bodies that Kelzabhar keeps alive. What the undead are for or where they are is a mystery, but this secret war is all too real.